Dan posted a rather boring article about 3rd Nephi in Interpreter which led me to this gem of an article in Dialogue from 1997.
The article is very short and sweet, and thoroughly explains the problem with 3rd Nephi in light of modern biblical textural criticism. In order for apologists to believe in a literal sermon on the mount, they have to completely reject the near universal scholarly consensus on the creation of the New Testament.
The conclusion of the article is devastating to belief in the events of the Book of Mormon being literal:
The version of the SOM presented in 3 Nephi closely follows the form and arrangement given in Matthew 5-7. The claim on the part of 3 Nephi to represent an independent witness to this teaching of Jesus rests on the assumption that it was Jesus who organized the material into the form in which we now find it in both the gospel of Matthew and 3 Nephi. Current scholarship on Matthew, however, indicates that this is not the case, that indeed Matthew contributed significantly to the shaping of his version of the SOM. If this assessment is correct, it is no longer possible to regard 3 Nephi 12-14 as a record of an actual sermon that was delivered before first-century Nephites by the resurrected Jesus, since Nephi could not have known Matthew. Rather, the 3 Nephi SOM was derived from Matthew (in the particular form given it by the KJV), after which certain minor changes were made with a view toward assimilating it to its New World setting.
Biblical scholarship is much more damaging to a literal Book of Mormon than New World archeology and that is saying a lot because New World archeology offers no proof at all of the Book of Mormon.
I actually enjoy it when scripture is honestly analyzed and assessed in a realistic manner.
You’re in good company. Which is saying something. Many great minds of the past who could have been fine atheists today found this a satisfying exercise in their time. Perhaps they were all just wrong. It’s nice if one can also speak their language, though, and decide for oneself.
In FAIRness, how can Matthew NOT have contributed significantly to the Sermon on the Mount if he was the one writing it down?
Put a better way, what’s the article’s proof that current scholarship can know which words are Jesus’s and which are Matthew’s inventions? It’s not like we have a tape recording of the actual sermon against which to check his transcription or his memory of the former.
"It’s ironic that the Church that people claim to be true, puts so much effort into hiding truths."
--I Have Questions, 01-25-2024
Biblical scholarship suggests that Matthew and Luke were constructed independently from earlier writings- Mark and a second lost source called “Q.”
This means Matthew is a later, less accurate account of the sermon on the mount, rather than a primary account. 3rd Nephi copies verbatim Matthew’s 3rd hand account of the sermon on the mount.
It’s like the game of telephone where someone heard the sermon, told it to someone else, who told it to someone else, etc etc until Matthew was written 40-50 years later circa 85 AD.
It doesn’t make sense for Jesus to say the words in Matthew in the Americas right after he was crucified (circa 30AD) because those words were written down decades later (85AD) after the long game of telephone.
